


Exposed to Equal Fates

by TheWaffleBat



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Apologies, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-13 14:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17489540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWaffleBat/pseuds/TheWaffleBat
Summary: He was, she thought, only doing his job. It wasn’t his fault she was having a bad day on top of a week's worth of bad days, and it wasn’t his fault the Master Sword had chosen him, or that being chosen by it was a portend of doom. It wasn’t even his choice to guard her - it had been her father’s decision, and he’d just loyally gone along with it because that was how he was, always doing his duty no matter if it was attending a banquet he only enjoyed because of the food or guarding the castle gates in the rain, stood for hours on end as he watched for danger or a late-night runner with news from the outlying lands of monsters becoming ever bolder.Zelda hurt Link, she knew that; she's not the kind of person to ignore that. She just hopes she can make it right.





	Exposed to Equal Fates

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Henry David Thoreau's _Friendship._

Zelda watched the little Guardian scuttle around its paddock, its Sheikah handler getting a bit more in control of it now, or at least more used to being in control, but for once her heart wasn’t in it; it somehow didn’t seem right to take joy in her studies now, after the truly awful things she’d said to Link yesterday morning.

He was, she thought, only doing his job. It wasn’t his fault she was having a bad day on top of a week's worth of bad days, and it wasn’t his fault the Master Sword had chosen him, or that being chosen by it was a portend of doom. It wasn’t even his choice to guard her - it had been her father’s decision, and he’d just loyally gone along with it because that was how he was, always doing his duty no matter if it was attending a banquet he only enjoyed because of the food or guarding the castle gates in the rain, stood for hours on end as he watched for danger or a late-night runner with news from the outlying lands of monsters becoming ever bolder.

A few villages had already fallen to them - harvests failed with farmers too wounded or dead to work them, a tiny garrison of soldiers not enough to protect them. A few more, swamped by the refugees, were begging for help the crown couldn’t spare, spread too thin as it was as they tried to shore up defences across the kingdom. The Zora and Gerudo were doing what they could to help, but it wasn’t enough; _goddesses_ , nowhere near enough to save everyone.

She knew Link’s village had been destroyed, and only then because an advisor told her. His mother had come to the castle with a few older women and children, bearing the news that Link’s father was dead and everyone else had been slaughtered, down to the last horse in the stable. He’d had to take a day off - her father had offered longer, but he seemed to need the work - for him to come back to himself, but there was still something sad in his eyes when his mother left just as quickly as she came, gone to work elsewhere.

And she was just making everything worse, for him and herself. She’d had no right to shout at him.

She decided she’d apologise - it was the right thing to do - so Zelda turned from the little Guardian testing out its feet, learning to run now that it had learned to walk, and turned to go to the stable. Urbosa had told her that it was a good bet to go there first when looking for him, when he was upset or not, because he wasn’t really welcome in the barracks. Zelda didn’t know why, and she didn’t blame Link for not telling her.

There were eyes on her as she crossed the courtyard, servants and nobles and soldiers all turning to look at her. Hope, desperate and frightened, that she really did have the power to save them locked deep inside; curiosity, too, that she was going to a part of the castle she never went to - she wasn’t a knight who was more comfortable in a saddle than a carriage - and maybe just a little bit of awed disbelief when she smiled at them. She went inside, and the light, airy openness of it was almost as at odds with Link’s stiff-shouldered back turned to her as she and Link were.

Oh, she thought. She hadn’t really been expecting him, and now she didn’t know what to say. Well, what _could_ she say to make anything right between them? She’d behaved in a way that was entirely unbecoming of a princess, and utterly unfair besides. Link was a good man, far too kind in everything he did from showing a small, curious child the claymore he was training with to taking care of his black-coated horse because the enormous animal didn’t like anyone else.

Bubbles, said the plaque on its stall door, stomped a hoof and snorted at her when she came close, ears pinned back, and Link made a soothing noise at it, patting its neck in a calmness belied by the studied way he refused to turn to her. Zelda felt her heart sink a little - she’d hurt him a lot worse than she ever had before.

“Link,” She said, and breathed in the smell of straw and hay and horse that always followed him when she sighed, annoyed at herself for finding it so unnecessarily difficult. “I’m sorry.”

All the nobles and soldiers thought his silence was simplicity, that he was stupid and only knew how to swing a sword and hold a shield. That he was a short, dumb brute Zelda kept at her side like a dog because he was good enough to cool his heels in her shadow, but not much else. She was ashamed of it now, but she’d thought he was simple too - he didn’t take much interest in books even though he could read, knew nothing about very much of anything outside of animal husbandry and weaponry and fighting, and he was mostly content to sit and stare and watch the world pass him by, didn’t care to understand how the mushrooms he picked for a quick snack all formed a vast mycelium network observably beneficial to any plant connected to it, from the largest tree to the smallest blade of grass.

But he wasn’t simple, or stupid. He just liked his silence, his interests that weren’t shared by many other people. When she asked about swords he knew just as much as a bladesmith, and when she had a question about a half-tailed stray cat he’d managed to befriend he explained how he made friends with it as if it was that _easy_ to tame it. He didn’t know about mycelium or different species of moss and the implications that had for their surroundings, but when she and the Champions were caught in a blizzard he’d found them all shelter, and when the storm cleared and the snow had kept them trapped for days it was Link who knew where to go to get fish and meat and tough, hardy plants that didn’t care if it was midwinter or midsummer, knew how to make soup for an army out of a trout, two herbs, a handful of dried meat, and a cauldronful of snow.

He understood the world in a way that was different to her. While she could point to a horse and outline almost the entirety of its skeleton, the general outline of its musculature and how it was different to, say, a dog, Link could tell at a glance how it felt, what it needed, if it was friendly or not. He was such an expert rider he didn’t even need a bridle, just guided it with his knees and a few friendly words. While Zelda knew a mountain buck only grew its horns in summer to prepare for the autumn rut, Link knew how to find its tracks, saw a footprint and worked out if it was injured or sick, how fast it was going and in which direction.

“I’m sorry,” She said again, while Link froze midway through smoothing down Bubbles’ mane, his head turned to listen. “It was unfair of me; I know you didn’t choose to wield the Master Sword, and my frustrations shouldn’t have been taken out on you just because I was having a bad day. Please forgive me.”

Link continued brushing Bubbles’ coat, and at his feet the stablemaster’s easily irritable hound - almost as irritable as his master - put its chin on Link’s foot with a whine, tail thumping the ground in a beseeching rhythm. He was, she noticed, wearing an old, threadbare tunic, a bit long in the hem, a bit short in the sleeves, patches at the elbows where it had worn through. Not the Champions Tunic her father had given him.

Link nodded and finally turned to look at her. _Friends?_ Said his gesture, the slight tilt of his head making it a question. She tried not to feel too put out by Link using his sign language - if he didn’t want to speak then he was stubborn enough that he’d keep his voice silent come Ganon or high water, and it wasn’t her place to dissuade him. It was just a quirk of his, the same way Urbosa cooing over a baby in Castle Square was a quirk, or Daruk’s inability to speak quieter than a shout was a quirk. He was just Link, sometimes voiceless and sometimes not.

Zelda nodded, offering a smile. “Friends.”


End file.
